Word: blanca
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When Esteban the patron (Jeremy Irons) wakes up horny, saddles his horse and goes out to rape a peasant, you just know this isn't going to turn out to be an idle incident. A little later, when he is outraged at discovering his prepubescent daughter Blanca skinny-dipping with Pedro, his estancia foreman's son, you sense that moment too is going to have its consequences somewhere down the plot line. For from its opening frames, The House of the Spirits announces itself as one of those sagas in which there are no accidents, only portents of big-time...
...Tres Marias, Clara gives birth to a daughter, Blanca, who is Raised with all luxury befitting a legitimate child in the now powerfully conservative Trueba family. Esteban has also fathered an illegitimate child, the son of the peasant worker (Sarita Choudhury) he raped on his estate. This illegitimate son is destined to grow up and terrorize the Trueba family...
Meanwhile, Blanca grows to be a young woman (Winona Ryder) and has an affair, with a revolutionary peasant, Pedro (Antonio Banderas), giving birth to an illegitimate child of her own, and infuriating her father, who is not insightful enough to realize that he has done exactly the same thing years earlier...
Suddenly it is the 1960s, and the Truebas are caught up in the country's political struggles. Clara continues to float around the house and exercise her psychic powers. While Blanca supports her revolutionary lover and fights for political change...
Winona Ryder's unpredictable acting is at its worst in "the House of the Spirit." Love scenes between Pedro and Blanca are meaningless; true passion is completely absent in their relationships. Pedro's attempts at fiery speeches intended to stir the peasant workers into revolt are equally uninspired, and we are left to puzzle over this sudden attempt at a political message...